


place your words against my heart, not above my head

by cafe_au_late



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst light, College AU, F/F, Kind of fluffy, also they're dumb lmao this is dumb, it's like cute but dumb, mentions of marihilda, mentions of poly doropetra, two dorks confessing their feelings for each other in a roundabout and unecessarily extra way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafe_au_late/pseuds/cafe_au_late
Summary: Hilda gives questionable advice on confessing your feelings which Edelgard unfortunately takes.Even more unfortunate is that Byleth is an oblivious fool who has unknowingly been carrying this confession around in her bag and finally discovers it two weeks late.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 7
Kudos: 125





	place your words against my heart, not above my head

Edelgard watches from across the room as Byleth smiles at a dumb joke Sylvain shoots over his shoulder as he leaves with a wave. 

The Cichol tutoring and help center is packed on Thursday afternoon- full of students scrambling to get help with their last few tricky questions and assignments which were due at the end of the week. The help center is run by volunteers from the older years and a handful of very keen first years. 

Byleth is one of those older volunteers, every Tuesday and Thursday she would appear, settling in at the large L shaped table next to the window, where the sunlight would play off of her hair.The sunlight makes her look like some kind of ethereal being here to grace the long suffering first and second years with her presence.

“Still no reply huh? It’s been like a week.” The harsh sound of a chair scraping against the floor made Edelgard scowl at one smirking Hilda Goneril.

“Two weeks.” Edelgard corrected, even though it makes her seem even more pathetic. “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to you.” Edelgard folds her arms across her chest as Hilda takes a seat across from her.

“You were the one who asked me how I asked Mari out.” Hilda shrugs and blows a bubble the same colour as her hair. The bubble pops loudly, cutting through the chaotic din of multitudes of undergrads talking over each other and asking questions. The sound makes some of the other students in the room glare at them and the bubble’s remnants disappear back into Hilda’s mouth.

“I can’t believe that your dumb idea even worked on Marianne.” Edelgard’s scowl deepens further.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Byleth smile again, Dorothea having settled into the recently vacated seat at Byleth’s table. 

“Maybe if you actually sat with her instead of vaguely in her vicinity you’d get somewhere with this.” Hilda rolls her eyes at Edelgard, noticing where she was staring.

“I’m leaving now.” Edelgard announces, ignoring Hilda’s dig. 

“This early? It’s barely four.” Hilda says, looking very surprised.

Usually, Edelgard stays at the center until the sun has long set, sometimes even eating dinner here. Today, she doesn’t feel like it. 

“It’s going to rain later today, I want to leave before it actually rains since I don’t have an umbrella anymore,” Edelgard glares at Hilda as she packs up her things. This is a poor excuse and not really the reason why she wants to leave but thankfully Hilda lets the topic drop. With a huff, she picks up her bag and moves to leave.

Hilda catches her hand around the table as Edelgard passes by. “Hey, I’m sorry that it didn’t work out. But even if it rains now, it’ll be sunny again tomorrow, yeah?”

The sincerity in the pink-haired girl’s voice throws Edelgard for a loop. She wasn’t used to this side of Hilda all that often. 

Edelgard gives the other girl a sad smile. “Yeah.”

It rains tomorrow too.

* * *

  
  


Byleth groans and stretches back in her chair. All the joints in her body seem to protest this motion loudly at once with a series of noises that makes Dorothea wince from across the table. Suddenly self-conscious about it, Byleth glances around the nearly empty room, searching and feeling very foolish when she can’t find it.

“She left like two hours ago.” Dorothea smirks at Byleth knowingly.

“Who?”

“Edelgard, that’s who you were looking for, right?” Dorothea tosses her hair over her shoulder with an air of unshakeable confidence. 

Byleth hates that Dorothea is right but doesn’t say anything further. She has gotten used to walking Edelgard back to her dorm every Tuesday and Thursday night after the center closes for the night. Often, they would eat dinner together in the corner of the room, laughing quietly to each other about Caspar’s latest antics, or Ferdinand’s dramatic flair. 

Last month, they had the terrible privilege of watching Claude and Sylvain attempt to joust with each other in the center walkway of the room, using the spinny chairs as mounts and rolled up newspapers as lances.

It ended with Sylvain laying dazed on the ground when Claude decided that his newspaper was not a lance but a javelin, throwing the projectile at the other man with a loud ‘yeet!’. The newspaper bounced off of Sylvain harmlessly but the crappy spinny chair that served as Sylvain’s mount did not handle the sudden obstacle in the way of its wheels well. The paper got caught up in the wheels, forcing the front wheel to come to an unplanned halt and throwing Sylvain to the floor.

Byleth would never forget the uncontrollable laughter that overtook Edelgard as they checked to make sure that Sylvain wasn’t concussed.

That was a while ago though. Byleth hasn't really gotten the opportunity to hang out with her for nearly two weeks now. Edelgard always seemed busy, leaving earlier than she used to, leaving Byleth wondering what she could have possibly done wrong.

The two of them wave to Ignatz as they leave, walking down the empty and darkened buildings until they reach the main entrance.

“Ugh it’s raining so heavily. And of course, I forgot my umbrella.” Dorothea grumbles as she rifles through her bag but only comes up with an empty sleeve that should hold an umbrella.

“You can borrow mine,” Byleth says automatically. She sets her backpack down on the floor in front of her feet and digs through her own bag. Strangely enough she comes up with an unfamiliar red umbrella that she frowns at. When did she get that umbrella? She hands it to Dorothea anyway, “Bileth is coming to pick me up tonight.”

“You sure?” Dorothea eyes the umbrella, wanting to take it but unwilling to let her friend just get soaked in the rain outside.

“Yeah, I’ll just ask him to pull up by the side door instead of the parking lot. It’ll be a two meter dash to the car. You have to walk outside across campus still.” Byleth shrugs her backpack back on and pulls out her phone to text her twin brother.

“I’ll give your umbrella back tomorrow.” Dorothea smiles and opens the red umbrella with a flourish. 

Byleth waves at her, not paying attention at all.

“Uhm… Byleth?” 

“Hmm?” Byleth looks up to see Dorothea still standing there, umbrella opened before her.

“I didn’t know you felt this way about me. I mean I of course would be okay with this and I think Petra would be as well but I would need to sit down with her and talk about being in a relationship with you,” Dorothea smirks.

The look on Dorothea’s face tells Byleth that she is only teasing, but what brought this on is still a mystery to Byleth.

“What?” 

Dorothea’s smirk only grows wider as she turns the umbrella around so that Byleth can see the inside of the umbrella.

In big black letters, across the inside of the umbrella: ‘I LIKE YOU.”

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Byleth stares at the words. It hits her all at once.

"Dorothea, do you think it will rain tomorrow too?"

* * *

  
  


Edelgard stares out at the sky, the grey grey skies, rain falling so heavily that you couldn’t pick apart the sound of the individual raindrops hitting the roof above her head, just a dull roar around her. Momentarily she debates just turning around and returning to her room instead of braving the weather to make it to class. 

Honestly, she should have gone out and bought a new umbrella last night. 

Curse Hilda for convincing her to deface her own umbrella and giving it away. It felt like such a good idea at that time.  


Edelgard still remembers how hard it was raining that night.

Byleth stood there staring up at the sky as the heaven splits open and water pours and pours and pours. She had some place else to be that day, unable to walk Edelgard home for once after they finished at Cichol center. With trembling hands, Edelgard offered Byleth her umbrella, heavy with words that Edelgard dared not to speak into existence yet. Hastily she rushed after Hilda in the rain and walked the rest of the way to her room sharing Hilda's umbrella. She would have much rather shared an umbrella with Byleth but Edelgard couldn't face the other woman if her feelings weren't returned then.

That would have been too awkward.

Not that it mattered because Edelgard couldn't even face Byleth now.

Edelgard sighs and is in the middle of taking a picture of the terrible weather and sending said picture with a spiteful message to Hilda when the sound of someone beside her opening up an umbrella makes her look up. 

All she can see in front of her is the inside of a black umbrella that is held out to her so she can clearly see the words spelled out in white masking tape. 

‘I LIKE YOU TOO!’

Edelgard looks up to see a hopeful looking Byleth. 

“I didn’t open your umbrella that night when you lent it to me. Bileth picked me up. I apologize for any undue distress this has caused you.” Byleth shuffles from side to side awkwardly. “I hope despite being two weeks late with an answer, you still feel the same?”

Edelgard fights the urge to look away, keeping her gaze fixed on Byleth even as the tips of her ears redden. “It’s not your fault. I should have known better than to try such a silly idea. Oh I am rambling, sorry. Yes, I still like you, Byleth.”

Byleth’s smile washes over her with the warmth of a gentle sunbeam.

It is still raining, Edelgard finds her own sunshine in the midst of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little one shot that I wanted to write as a little break from heist au.
> 
> It's based off of a similar scene in Tamen de Gushi (Their Story). (I love Tamen de Gushi please yell about it with me.) You can find me on twitter at bardigrade
> 
> Okay, now back to heist AU. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Stay safe out there! <3


End file.
